The Cold
by ponyiowa
Summary: It started as a simple, harmless idea, but quickly spiraled into something darker. Can Duskfire save her Clan in time? Two-shot.
1. The Rainstorm

I got this awesome idea. Read this story.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors.**

* * *

It began, in accordance with all things, as a small seed of an idea. At first, a catalyst, to set off the unfolding of events. And then: a thought here, a small notion or two there; simple, harmless contemplation. The spark of inspiration, a small flicker of doubt. But once it began, it was unable to be stopped. A snowball, slowly careening toward destruction.

They should have known better. Should have backed out before they even started, should have lifted the burden onto their own shoulders as everyone else in the Clan had. Should have not kept quiet, and let the secrecy decimate their Clan. Should have done the right thing. But once it started—well then, there was no going back, was there?

* * *

Duskfire crept along the edge of the tree, ears pricked, eyes watching. She observed the small, clueless mouse stuff nuts into its mouth until its cheeks bulged round, storing food for the long leafbare that was sure to come. And in a way, that's what she was doing. Grabbing food for leafbare before the prey all scampered into their hollows and holes in the ground.

A cold leaf-fall wind sped toward her—she could see the invisible force tousling the sparse leaves still left on the oak trees around her—but she held her position behind the tree, steeling herself not to move. The rush of freezing air bit into her pelt and she longed to just pick up the two mice she already had and scamper home to her warm nest, but she couldn't afford it. Her Clan couldn't afford it.

She peeked around the tree again, and saw that the mouse had packed all it could into its mouth and was now readying to leave. It was relaxed, having no idea of the hunter waiting in the shadows, its tail flicking from side to side. The small rodent twitched its whiskers and then began to scurry away—right toward Duskfire's hiding place.

Duskfire smiled. What good luck! _Thank you, StarClan_, she thought, and leapt.

The mouse froze as the cat hurtled toward it, stopped in its tracks. And then Duskfire's claws reached it and it was all over. The abandoned nuts fell to the ground, waiting once more to be picked up by inquisitive rodent paws and stored away into a cache hidden away in a hollow for leafbare.

Job done, Duskfire gathered the three mice up in her mouth, swinging them from their tails as she hurried home, nervously eying the dark clouds that gathered above. She was happy with her catch, and that she had found enough. There was no telling how much she would be able to find tomorrow.

She looked up again, the movement of her head making the small bodies of the dead mice bounce against her throat. The clouds were even darker now, almost black, covering the entire sky. Leaves rustled, and the cold leaf-fall wind was back, cutting into her coat and howling into her ears. Within a few moments, a splash of water hit Duskfire's nose—forcing her to momentarily stop and rub her foreleg across her face to clear the hazy drops obscuring her eyesight—and the skies opened, pouring down wet sheets of rain. White light flashed, and a second later, thunder rumbled in the distance.

By the time she would get to camp, her pelt would be completely soaked.

Thinking hard, Duskfire made a decision. At the large rock ahead, she would take the left path instead of the right. She'd always taken the right, ever since she was a small apprentice on her first outing, ready to train and ready to learn. "Always take the right," her mentor Eaglecry had told her. "It will lead you home." But her best friend, Honeyfur, disagreed. "The left path will bring you back to the camp, too," she'd argued before. "And it's quicker, too." She claimed that she'd used it many times, but then, she also said that she'd beaten a fox once. Honeyfur was that kind of cat.

Duskfire eyed the left route suspiciously. She hated stepping out of her boundaries, but if she would get home quicker…

She finally resolved to take the left path. She clenched her grip on the freshkill—they were beginning to slip out of her jaws—and put a paw beyond the left side of the rock. She paused for a moment, as if waiting for a sign from StarClan. As if on cue, lightning crackled across the sky once more, a dire reminding of her need to get back to camp.

Unable to decide whether that was a good thing or not, Duskfire took one more hesitant step—then jumped as thunder roared in her ears. That clinched it for her. She had no desire to be fried by the storm and sent to StarClan before her time. But after a while on the path, she didn't seem to be anywhere near the vine-infested entrance that marked the LightningClan camp. Even with the breakneck pace she ran at, and the memory of Honeyfur saying that the left path was the shorter one, she could see no sign of camp.

Rain beat mercilessly on her back, and water ran down her pelt in rivulets. Duskfire was cold, shivering, and, she realized with a shock, lost. She had no idea where she was, and the stormy weather didn't make it any better. She'd only had her warrior ceremony a couple moons ago, and sometimes she still acted like an apprentice before remembering to be more mature.

Duskfire looked frantically around for shelter. There was no way in StarClan she was going to be able to get home that night, or at least until the storm died down and she was able to find her way back. She couldn't hide under a tree; she still remembered the time she and Honeyfur went out of camp to catch prey one rainy day, only to see a bird killed right before their eyes with one merciless stroke of lightning.

And then she spotted it. A hole in the side of the cliff, carved right into the rock. A boulder about the same size rested beside it. Funny, Honeyfur had never mentioned this when she'd bragged about how she always took the left path. But it was shelter, and Duskfire wasn't going to stand in the rain all day. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she bolted into the hole, and was instantly rewarded with no more rain splattering down her back. She dropped the three mice—which were drenched with water, and she doubted anyone would want to eat them anymore—onto the ground.

But once there was no more rain distracting her anymore, she realized that the hollow had a very…empty feeling. Like there was nothing alive in it and there hadn't ever been. _But I'm alive_, she reminded herself. _I'm safe from the rain, and I'm going to stay here until it lets up_. But still she shivered, and cold crept into her pelt. She hadn't noticed it before, but now she did—an overall, freezing atmosphere in the cave. Something new had appeared just at the edge of her sight, and she went cross-eyed until she figured out what it was—a perfect miniscule icicle that had formed on the tip of her nose.

Duskfire shivered, and decided that the cave no longer seemed very safe. She would have to find another place to spend the night. She gathered up the mice and padded toward the entrance, but just as she did so, there was a creaking sound and the large boulder outside began to roll. The earth, now drenched with rain, had transformed into mud and was moving it. She ran faster, wishing to be out of the cave, but her steps faltered when she realized that the boulder was cutting off the remaining gray light coming from the entrance. It was going to seal her in!

She doubled her pace, but to no avail. Steadily and surely, the rock rolled to a stop in front of the hole three fox-lengths before she reached it and the cave went pitch-black. Duskfire dropped her mice and pounded on the rock with her forepaws and put her shoulder against it and pushed, but the boulder didn't budge an inch on the non-muddy ground. She tried to dig a hole beneath the rock, but the cave had frozen the ground so much that it, too, was hard like stone. Finally, she sat down on her haunches and cried out for help until her voice was hoarse. But no one came.

She was trapped.

* * *

Honeyfur trotted along, paying no attention to the thunder emanating from the dark sky above. She carried a plump rabbit in her jaws and was very pleased with herself for catching it._ I can't wait to show this to my Clanmates,_ she thought happily. _It's so big._ When she got to the fork in the road, she took the left, as always.

She maneuvered the trail with ease, for she had been here for a thousand times. She knew it like the back of her paw. But today something was different. She couldn't figure out what until she looked down and saw pawprints. Had someone been here before her? All the times that she'd gone on this path, she'd never seen anyone else, as the rest of the Clan always took the right one. As time went on, she'd come to think of the path as_ her_ path, and it unsettled her to think that someone else was using it.

A little while more, she began to hear cries for help. They were coming…from the cliff? Honeyfur went up to the cliff side and pawed at the rocky wall. Nothing seemed out of place. But yet, someone seemed to be inside there. _Strange_.

Mud rushed past her legs, turning her silky golden furred paws to dirty brown stumps. Setting down the rabbit in a mud-free spot, Honeyfur tried to groom herself, but gagged with disgust when a stray twig got caught in her throat. She spit it out and decided that she would have to groom herself back at the LightningClan camp.

She pressed her ear to the cliff, listening hard. But now there was silence, stone cold silence. Had whoever it was given up? "Hello?" she yowled. "Is anybody in there?" There was a silent pause, and then a muted movement inside.

"Honeyfur? Is that you?" called out a muffled voice. It was Duskfire.

"Yeah. Are you stuck inside?"

"The stupid rock won't _mooove_!" wailed Duskfire. "It shut me in and now I'm trapped and it's so _cooold_!"

"Hang on; I'll try to get you out."

Honeyfur squinted and looked closely at the cliff face. When she did, she saw just the faintest jutting out of a boulder edge. If she hadn't known where to look, she would have bypassed it entirely, leaving Duskfire alone in her ensnarement. The break in the cliff wall was that subtle. Honeyfur put her shoulder to the rock and pressed down, shoving at an angle so that the massive stone would roll out of the cavity it was set in. Surprisingly enough, after a few pushes, the boulder gave way, moving easily on the slippery, muddy ground. After a few seconds, Duskfire sprung out, eyes wide with relief.

"Thank StarClan I'm out! Thank you, Honeyfur. It was so terrible in there. And cold." She shook herself, as if trying to get warm.

Honeyfur pressed her pelt against Duskfire's, a gesture of reassurance. "It's alright, you're out now." She picked up the now-soaked rabbit, and her next words came out muffled. "Let's go home now."

* * *

The next morning, Duskfire woke up and padded quietly to the fresh-kill pile, wanting to get a small piece of prey to eat before she went out to hunt. The dawn patrol had already gone, and she hadn't been one of the cats picked. But when she got there, she was shocked to see the fresh-kill pile decimated to little more than a scrawny bird. Duskfire flipped the bird over with one paw, as if the dead swallow was hiding perhaps ten more pieces of prey under it. But there was nothing.

Duskfire swallowed hard. In her lifetime—which wasn't very long so far, but still—the fresh-kill pile had never been like this. And leafbare hadn't even completely come yet! For a moment, she let her thoughts swirl into a frenzy, and wondered which of her Clanmates would die that leafbare, before she shook her head to clear them.

Suddenly, she remembered the mice she had left in the cave the day before. She could go get them and put them in the pile! Then she recalled their water-drenched bodies and wrinkled her nose. Would they be edible by the time she got there? But at least it would be worth it to try.

Afraid of being trapped in the cave again, Duskfire went and woke up a grumpy Honeyfur from her slumber. They agreed that only Duskfire would go in there, and if she got trapped, Honeyfur would free her again.

They soon arrived at the cave. It was closed, even though Honeyfur had left it open after she'd freed Duskfire and they'd gone home. _The mud must have moved the rock back_, Duskfire theorized. The two she-cats easily pushed the boulder away, and Honeyfur stood guard at the entrance while Duskfire went uneasily in to fetch her mice.

She'd left the prey at the very back of the cave, where she'd dropped them in despair, and she went there now. Blinking in the dim light filtering through the entrance, she felt the ground for the mice, and soon found them. She picked them up and brought them back out to Honeyfur. "Do you think they're still edible?"

A memory popped into her head: A moon before, Blackpaw, a newly appointed apprentice, had brought back a vole and acted like it was the best thing in the Clans. He refused to let any of the other apprentices eat it, nor the younger warriors, and spent the rest of the day watching the fresh-kill pile doggedly to see which senior warrior or high status-holding Clanmate—like the deputy, perhaps—would pick it up to eat. Word spread through LightningClan that Blackpaw was guarding the fresh-kill pile, and more specifically, his vole, so the other cats went out of their way to avoid that particular piece of prey. And the next day, Blackpaw had dashed excitedly to the fresh-kill pile, only to find a rotted vole with flies circling around the smelly body.

Honeyfur pawed at the mice, seeming to remember Blackpaw's vole, too. Gingerly, she lowered her head and took a small bite out of one of them. She chewed slowly, delight spreading over her face. "Hey, it's not rotten at all! It tastes like you caught it just a few moments ago!"

"Really?" Surprised, Duskfire bent down and took a bite out of the mouse. "It is! Huh." They finished the first mouse together, and then Duskfire made to pick up the other two, but Honeyfur stopped her.

"Here, leave one of them in there," she said, and tossed the small rodent into the cave. "You take this one back to the camp, and we'll come at nightfall and see if the third mouse is still edible." Duskfire thought over the idea, and agreed. They sealed the cave again, and then Honeyfur caught a squirrel before they padded back to camp.

* * *

Night came and found two she-cats huddled at the cliff face.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Honeyfur?" one of them, a small gray-and-brown mottled she-cat, inquired nervously.

Honeyfur, a golden-brown colored cat, nodded confidently in answer. "I'm sure, Duskfire. Now help me move this." Together, the two warriors shifted the boulder to the side and stepped in.

Honeyfur had never been in the cave before, and she found herself shivering violently before taking control of her shudders. Her friend turned to gaze at her with a knowing look.

"It's cold, isn't it?"

"Yes." Their breaths came out in puffs, frosty clouds of air that hung in the cave before disintegrating.

Duskfire found the mouse and dragged it outside. Honeyfur followed quickly, not wanting to be in the cave one more second. And yet as she gazed at the hole they had just vacated, she found it to be a mysterious place that whispered of secrets, and something whispered inside her mind—an idea, perhaps? But it was gone just as quickly, and Duskfire was now reporting that the mouse was indeed safe to eat.

With this new discovery, Honeyfur was excited. "Don't you see what this means?" she asked, the idea coming back to her. The idea was so ingenious that she could hardly believe no one had ever thought of it before—but then again, no one had ever found the cave except for them.

"What?" Duskfire said, looking at her curiously. She offered her the rest of the mouse; there was no way they were bringing it back to camp with a bite already taken out of it.

She was practically quivering with anticipation now, her breath coming out in fast, cold gusts of air. "Don't you see?" she asked again. "This cave…it can preserve fresh-kill!" When Duskfire tilted her head to one side, still confused, she elaborated. "We can store food here, and it won't ever spoil. This-this could get us through leafbare! Whenever we need to eat, we can just come here! We won't have to gobble up our food one day only to starve the next."

Now Duskfire got it; Honeyfur could see the understanding dawning in her eyes. "That's a brilliant idea, Honeyfur!" she breathed. "We'll be the most well-fed of all the Clans." She turned to go, the half-eaten mouse forgotten. "Come on; let's go tell Hawkstar right now!"

But Honeyfur had stopped, hesitation in her stance. "I…I'm actually not sure we should do that," she stammered, heat sweeping over her pelt from what she was about to admit.

Duskfire paused also, confusion etched in her features. "But this could help get our Clan through leafbare! We would have food safely stored away for whenever we need it." She peered at her friend more closely, and was shocked to see Honeyfur turning away her head in shame. "Are you possibly saying that…?" She couldn't be. Honeyfur was a loyal warrior and had always followed the warrior code.

"As young warriors, we'll be the main fighting force in the following moons," Honeyfur began haltingly, unsure if what she was doing was right. She pushed the thought away, of course she was. "So, we are the ones who need to keep their strength up. We are the ones who need full bellies every day. _We_ are the ones who need to live."

Duskfire's mouth hung open in surprise, and Honeyfur took a step backward, not sure what Duskfire would do next. "It's okay, though, if you still want to tell Hawkstar—" she started to add hastily, but the mottled she-cat interrupted her.

"I…I think I agree with you." Honeyfur blinked, surprised, not expecting that answer at all. Duskfire went on. "But…if the elders or the queens seem to be hungry, we'll bring them a few extra pieces of fresh-kill, right?"

"Right," Honeyfur agreed, feeling immensely relieved that Duskfire was going along with her. She held out her paw, wanting to cement the agreement with something more final. "Do you promise that this secret will forever stay with the two of us, and only the two of us?"

The gray-and-brown she-cat hesitated for only one second before putting her paw on top of Honeyfur's. "I promise."

* * *

So, how did you like it? The next and final chapter will be up soon. Please review. ;)

~Ponyiowa


	2. The Runoff

Here's the second chapter!

SakuraFlutist: Yes, it is! Until things get out of hand... ;)

Ranger of the Forest: Yep! It's the first time I've written anything besides Romance/Adventure, as you can see from my other stories.

Smurflover: I will, thanks. :)

Jayfeather: Thank you. :D

Mochikins: Yeah. XD I'm going to change it to_ The Cold_, though.

Honeyshade: Thanks for reviewing! :) And I guess it was a bit rushed, because I tried to make it seem like they were only two young warriors, out on a harmless adventure. But as this chapter shows, it turns out to be something darker.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors.**

* * *

It was the middle of leafbare, and the cats of LightningClan were taking it hard. Scrawny kits huddled at their mothers' sides, mewling pitifully for milk, while the queens stroked the kits' thin flanks gently but with shaking tails, brokenly repeating over and over again to the hungry scraps of fur at their paws that they _had_ no milk. The elders stared unseeing out of their nests, too tired to move, quietly murmuring to each other of how in the old days, the prey was so plentiful that it practically jumped into your mouth. The warriors dragged themselves out of their nests each day to return with only a few skimpy pieces of prey, the only things they could find. The leader presided over a broken Clan, heart heavy with despair.

And yet, two warriors seemed to return home every day with full bellies and light dispositions, curling up contentedly in their nests at night and dashing out of the camp at dawn the next day. The other cats whispered confusedly, wondering if they were taking food from Twolegs. They _had_ to be, either that or they were expecting kits.

The medicine cat cornered one of the warriors one day. "Duskfire," she asked haggardly, in a voice that held a tinge of tiredness in it, "are you expecting kits?"

The mottled gray-and-brown she-cat stopped, surprise flickering in her face. "Uh, no. Why do you ask?"

Poppybloom sighed and sat down to organize the few dried herbs she had left, what with all the cats sick with greencough now. "Nothing. Just wondering."

Duskfire paused, then said, "Well, nice talking to you," and left the medicine cat den.

Outside, she met up with Honeyfur. "Honeyfur," she whispered urgently, "Poppybloom just asked me if I was expecting kits! _Kits_, can you believe it? And haven't you heard the whispers? They think we've been eating out of Twoleg paws!"

The golden-brown she-cat snorted derisively. "Shows how much they know," she scoffed.

"Honeyfur, look at me!" Duskfire shouted, making the she-cat start with surprise. "Cats are _dying_. Our Clanmates are starving around us. Let's go tell Hawkstar about our food storage now." _Please, Honeyfur._ Duskfire couldn't bear it anymore; it simply wasn't right. But Honeyfur shook her head. "No one's died yet." She swept her tail from side to side. "They're still all fine. How about to cheer you up, we each take two pieces of prey from the cave today?"

Duskfire felt like yowling at the top of her lungs; Honeyfur was completely missing the point. "But you said that if our Clanmates seemed to be starving, we would let them have the fresh-kill too!" She pointed with one paw at Blacktail staggering through the camp. He was now a warrior, as he'd waited his entire life for, but instead of the bright-eyed apprentice he had been before, he was now a hunched tom with his head down, with no sign of the cat he'd been in leaf-fall. "Look at him! His ribs are poking out."

Honeyfur sighed. "Look, it's not their problem they didn't find enough food. Sure, we need to be good Clanmates, but we don't have to bring food to them."

"We _took_ all the food!" Duskfire whisper-shouted. "Almost all of it. We stored it away like squirrels and now they have to work as hard as they can just to find one measly mouse."

The golden-brown warrior's eyes blazed, and she clapped a paw over Duskfire's mouth. "Be quiet!" she hissed. "Do you want someone to overhear us and report about this to Hawkstar?"

Duskfire backed away, shaking her head in disbelief. "I can't believe you. I can't believe you're doing this."

"I can't believe _you're_ saying this," Honeyfur spat, fur rising in a wave of anger. "Do you remember what you promised? You said that you would keep the secret. You said that it would stay between the two of us."

"But…but can't we at least bring a few pieces of prey from the cave to the fresh-kill pile?"

"No. Like I said, not our problem if they can't catch anything."

With that, Honeyfur spun around and began to stalk out of camp. Just before she disappeared through the vine-covered entrance, she turned around to shoot a question at Duskfire. "Are you coming or not?"

Duskfire lifted her head and stared Honeyfur full in the face. "No."

Honeyfur shrugged. "Fine by me." And she disappeared through the vines, no doubt to the cave where she would fill her belly with prey.

Duskfire glared at the spot where the golden brown she-cat had been. Then she padded through the vine-covered entrance, too. Today, she decided, she'd try to actually catch her food.

But after hours of fruitless hunting, she returned home, heart heavy. She hadn't been able to catch anything. As much as she hated to admit it, she had been right. Honeyfur and she had taken the most of the prey before they escaped into their hollows to wait out leafbare, and now there was almost nothing left.

When she brushed through the vine entrance, she stopped, wondering what all the commotion was about. A group of cats clustered around the center of the camp clearing, shoulders hunched and tails drooping with sadness. "What's wrong?" Duskfire asked, stepping closer to the huddle.

Her friend Whitefrost lifted her head for a brief second to stare at Duskfire, her eyes dark with sorrow. "Maplewing…she died!" she wailed, burying her face into her dead mother's fur.

_So that's what this is all about,_ Duskfire thought with a heavy heart. She padded closer to pay her respects to the much-respected elder.

Maplewing's body lay stretched out in silent death on the ground, her flanks still. The starved elder's eyes were closed forever, her spirit now in StarClan because of Honeyfur's selfishness and Duskfire's indecisiveness to take a stand. _I'm sorry, Maplewing_, thought Duskfire sadly as she sat next to the shuddering Whitefrost. _I'm sorry that you won't die peacefully with a full heart, instead of starving to death. I'm sorry that it had to come to this to make me realize I have to stand up to Honeyfur. But this will end now. I will make sure of it._

She got up and padded silently out of camp, the grieving cats taking no notice of her leaving. She had to find Honeyfur.

* * *

Duskfire found Honeyfur lounging outside the hollow in the cliff. The golden-brown she-cat was savoring a bird, chewing slowly and seeming indifferent to the layer of snow and frost that crunched beneath her paws. But she leapt to her feet at once when she saw Duskfire and the glare on her face. "What? What is it?"

"Maplewing died."

Honeyfur's face went slack with shock. "I…I…"

Duskfire took a step closer. "You said that no cat was hurt yet. Well, now there is. If we don't give the fresh-kill to our Clanmates, many more will die. Come on, help me take this all back to camp." She made a move to dart inside the cave, but Honeyfur blocked her way.

"I don't think so," the she-cat said, eyes narrowing. "I always knew you would back out, Duskfire. I should have never included you in this. I should have let you starve with the rest of those fools."

Duskfire's mouth dropped open. Her friend—the cat she'd known since they were kits—was saying these things? What sort of cat had Honeyfur transformed into? And how had Duskfire never noticed this until this moment? "Honeyfur, come on." She tried to dash past Honeyfur, but the LightningClan warrior blocked her. "Our Clanmates have nothing to eat. They're wasting away. We need to help them."

Honeyfur slashed Duskfire's shoulder, and droplets of blood splattered to the soft white snow below. "There is no 'we' now. Just me, and you. And soon there will be no you."

Duskfire backed away, her eyes widening when she grasped the sinister meaning of Honeyfur's words. "But…we're friends!" she cried. "We're Clanmates! You can't kill your Clanmate." Her voice grew quieter. "You…you can't kill a friend."

A twisted, dark version of a smirk appeared on Honeyfur's face. "Too bad then, that we're not friends." And she sprang.

She managed to bowl Duskfire over, mostly by surprise, but the gray-and-brown she-cat was up on her feet in less than a second. She shoved Honeyfur to the side, not trying to harm her, but trying to get her away from the cave. But Honeyfur fought viciously, digging red lines through Duskfire's pelt and snapping at Duskfire's paws. Eventually, Duskfire was forced to fight back purely from the need to save her own life, and the two she-cats rolled around on the snowy forest floor, clawing and hissing loud enough to wake the dead.

And that was how LightningClan found them, engaged in a battle to the death in a dark, icy-cold cave with the scattered bodies of prey surrounding them.

* * *

Duskfire sat by the entrance of the warrior den, tail curled around her forepaws. The late greenleaf wind ruffled her fur, revealing scars running up and down her sides. She was deep in thought, her eyes scanning the sky without seeing. After a while of sitting there, she felt hungry. She got up and padded to the fresh-kill pile, but the new warriors had just been there and had raided it, leaving only a bird. When Duskfire saw its sightless eyes staring up at her, she suddenly didn't feel hungry anymore. She turned around and walked back to her position, wrapping her tail around her paws once more.

She sighed quietly, drifting back to the memory of that fateful day. Once Honeyfur had noticed the shocked LightningClanners standing around her, she had hissed, "You'll never find me," and dove into the cave. But what Honeyfur nor Duskfire or the rest of their Clanmates had expected to happen was that once Honeyfur was inside, there was an avalanche of rocks, blocking the entrance with a barricade so thick that no cat could make their way inside, and sealing off the cave forever. Honeyfur was gone.

But sometimes, Duskfire would forget and turn to a cat that wasn't there, wanting to share a laugh over what had just happened with Honeyfur, only to find empty air. She wasn't deaf to the whispers hissed urgently in quiet voices when she walked by, and she wasn't blind either to the pointed stares that Mudeye, the only surviving elder from that time, gave her when she would occasionally bring him pieces of prey. She knew it would take a while for the Clan to recover from what had happened in leafbare, and she knew that it would be some time before she would fully remember that Honeyfur simply wasn't _there_ anymore. How could it not? Honeyfur had been her best friend; the two were together whenever they could be, from the time when they were kits. And yet she had been blind to Honeyfur's slow transformation into darkness, until the moment when the golden-brown she-cat had tried to kill her.

_What happened, Honeyfur? _she thought sadly. _And how did I not see it?_ She noticed Whitefrost pad by with Blacktail, the two cats twining tails and murmuring to each other in low contented tones. Blacktail had helped Whitefrost get over her mother's death, and there were rumors that Whitefrost was going to move to the nursery soon. Duskfire was happy for them. And if there were going to be kits, she was glad that they would have plenty to eat, unlike the poor kits who had to survive the leafbare. She watched one of them, Sleetpaw, now an apprentice, bound past and snatch the last bird off the pile.

_Time to restock._ Duskfire clambered to her paws again, brushing through the vine entrance to the warm scenery outside. Birds trilled high on their perches in their trees, the last serenade of the day before the sun set. Before barely any time had passed at all, she caught a squirrel and a vole, depositing the vole on the fresh-kill pile and sitting back to enjoy the squirrel. She bit into the fresh meat, savoring the proud feeling in her chest that she had caught the prey herself, instead of sneaking away to collect it from the cave.

She finished it quickly, and after cleaning her whiskers, she went and settled into her nest. She closed her eyes, resting. After a while, she felt her niece Sleetpaw nudge her in the stomach, seeking attention. It had been too late to save her mother, Duskfire's sister, and Duskfire took care of the apprentice now. When Duskfire didn't respond, the sneaky gray apprentice climbed on top of the gray-and-brown mottled she-cat's back, curling up with a loud mrrow of pleasure. Duskfire purred, shaking her off, and Sleetpaw tumbled to the ground, only to snuggle herself into Duskfire's side.

The two cats rested together, bellies full and hearts happy. And why wouldn't they be? The harsh, bleak leafbare was behind them, and they had their life ahead of them. Duskfire briefly opened her eyes to watch the sun set, the bright warm rays sinking into the horizon. The birds hushed to watch the night come, and soon the moon appeared in all its silver glory, casting light into the inky darkness of the sky. Duskfire smiled and closed her eyes once more. Night had fallen, but there would be another sunrise to watch, another day to live.

_Can you hear me, Honeyfur?_ she thought. _You were right. We do need to live. But so does everybody else._ And she drifted off to sleep, finally at peace.

* * *

So how did you like it? Review, please!

~Ponyiowa


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